Will Indiegogo’s new personal-cause site help it stand out in the crowd?

In the crowdfunding world, two of the earliest giants were Indiegogo and Kickstarter. Both sites can be used for purposes either corporate, such as the creation of a new product, or cause, such as charitable giving. But the difference is in their reputation: Indiegogo, arguably, attracts do-gooders (independent theatre productions; save your local bookstore), while Kickstarter has the flash (the Pebble smartwatch; the Veronica Mars movie).

Indiegogo’s latest move cements that image further.

The San Francisco-based crowdfunding site announced on Monday the launch of Indiegogo Life, a website strictly for personal causes that will not charge the usual fee. (Indiegogo charges 4% for campaigns that reach their goal; 9% when a campaign does not.) The company lists “emergencies, medical expenses, celebrations or other life events” as potential use cases. Speed and ease are the main benefits. A campaign on Indiegogo Life should take just a few minutes and a few clicks to set up, the company says, which is of crucial importance in cases where a family or individual needs money quickly, say, to pay medical bills.

Over the years there have been a wide range of nonprofit campaigns funded on Indiegogo. In 2013, DC Comics TWX took to the site to continue its “We Can Be Heroes” initiative addressing the hunger crisis in Africa; the year before that, a British man raised almost $100,000 to fund research for Alkaptonuria, or “Black Bone Disease,” which afflicted his two sons. Campaigns like these will still appear on Indiegogo.com. The new site, which is wholly separate from the original Indiegogo, will only be for campaigns that raise money for individuals.

Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell co-founded Indiegogo in 2008 because each of them, in different areas (indie films; charity; and indie theatre), had seen a need for a way to circumvent the traditional routes to funding. The trio made Fortune‘s 40 Under 40 in 2013 and Indiegogo has continued to grow, along with main competitor Kickstarter (which launched in 2009) and the crowdfunding industry at large.

In a press release about the news, Indiegogo touts a 2012 campaign that raised more than $700,000 for Karen Klein, a bullied bus monitor in upstate New York. But Danae Ringelmann tells Fortune it was a 2011 campaign, the Pastor Marrion Fund, which raised money for a priest in the Congo to have a kidney transplant, that inspired the new site. “That campaign came out of nowhere and was a very wonderful surprise for the three of us,” she says. “We always envisioned Indiegogo as democratizing capital, give people the power to fund whatever natters to them. But I think a lot of our experience was seeing it in the creative space, or in the arts. And it was still really early for us; we tended to know most of the campaigners on our site, and this was one of the first campaigns that none of us had ever talked to, it was just organic, it happened by itself. Then Karen Klein happened a year later, and it really showed the demand.” The company says that since 2012, it has experienced triple-digit growth in the “personal cause” category, making this move a logical one.

It is also a smart one with regard to Indiegogo’s competition. The crowdfunding space is exploding. Though Indiegogo and Kickstarter remain the leaders, there are hundreds if not thousands of smaller web sites and apps that have launched— some topically broad, some limited to narrow interests (call it “micro-crowdfunding”). One is the company Tilt (originally called Crowdtilt), whose CEO James Beshara told Fortune earlier this year that he predicts the entire space will become more focused on charity and causes. “Crowdfunding will move away from flashy products and return to the core needs,” he said. Indiegogo may be making the same bet, wisely launching its first spinoff site in order to be one of the first in the space to place such a visible emphasis on this type of fundraising.

Rallying around individuals in need is something the Internet is fond of—look no further than the fantastically viral ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Imagine an Indiegogo Life campaign as an Ice Bucket Challenge at the scale of an individual, rather than an association. (Interestingly, even though that movement was fueled by videos, Ringelmann says that for this particular customer segment, a video isn’t as important as it is for other Indiegogo campaigns.) In the National Football League, one of the year’s biggest stories, a positive one, in contrast to the swirl of controversy around player conduct issues, was Devon Still. The Cincinnati Bengals had cut the player but then re-signed him to its practice squad solely so that he could stay covered by the league’s health insurance and thus afford the medical bills for his 4-year-old daughter who has cancer. You can imagine a father in Still’s position—one who isn’t an NFL player—taking to a platform like Indiegogo Life to raise the money instead.

Indiegogo has had a big year. In January, it raised a huge $40 million in a Series B investment round from a number of firms including Kleiner Perkins. In May, it raised another, undisclosed round from individual investors like Virgin’s Richard Branson and the entrepreneur Max Levchin. Capping off 2014 with this announcement adds to the company’s momentum. It also strengthens Indiegogo’s theme of openness. In contrast to Kickstarter, which has an application process and turns some projects down, Indiegogo welcomes all campaigns of all types. The company says that its 250,000 funded campaigns make it the largest crowdfunding platform in the world. And yet, for now, Kickstarter still has the bigger name. Chalk that up to branding or the ineffable quality of appearing hip.

Indiegogo Life combats its biggest competitor while also showing heart. For Ringelmann, this new product launch was personal. “Two friends of mine, two years ago, their daughter was diagnosed with stage-four brain cancer right before the holidays, and it was very hard for the family financially,” she says. “Suddenly they were $22,000 in debt and trying to save their daughter. The emotional burden of that all happened overnight. So my friends did an Indiegogo campaign and raised over $30,000—and very quickly. It meant a lot that we as a company could do something. And in general, the more we talked to people who were running personal fundraisers, the more we realized we could make our platform better for them.”

As a leader, is it better to be feared or loved?

The 40 under 40 Insider network is an online community where some of the most thoughtful and influential people in business under 40 contribute answers to timely questions about career and leadership. This week we ask: As a leader, is it better to be feared or loved? The following answer is by Danae Ringelmann, founder and Chief Development Officer at Indiegogo.

As a leader of a company solving an important problem in the world – inequitable access to capital – I believe it is better to be loved than feared.

I believe being loved embodies three simple ideas: trust, respect, and inspiration. People follow those they trust, work harder for those they respect, and find meaning when inspired to make a greater impact through their work. As a result, people are far more motivated to perform to their potential and creative in how they achieve their goals, which drives both business results and personal fulfillment. Productivity and happiness are not mutually exclusive, but rather co-dependent.

How to Build TrustI don’t believe trust is given; it is earned. And to earn the trust of your team, I’ve discovered it’s important to listen with the intent to understand and share your knowledge and expertise when relevant. As a leader, you must be open to being wrong, vulnerable enough to admit it, and courageous enough to confidently change course if needed. You also must be willing to be a coach when it would be easier to be a dictator.

As a company pioneering a new industry, we are not trying to be a “cheaper, faster, or better” version of something that already exists. We’re inventing a new and fair way of bringing entrepreneurial, artistic, and cause-related efforts to life. There are no blueprints; we must create our own. And so we depend on listening to and sharing with each other what we have learned along the way. We don’t have time to repeat the same mistakes. So we need to trust each other in order to innovate, and we need to innovate in order to move forward. It’s that simple.

How to Garner RespectLike trust, respect is also something you earn—and by leading through your actions, not your words. A fearless work ethic with a results-oriented mindset is magnetic—and it attracts those who share the same values. Those who don’t, stay away. And when you continue to earn your job every day, your team members do as well, and the positive cycle continues. Your great employees and their results command respect, and in turn, attract more great employees and results.

The members of our team who continue to make an impact adapt through change elegantly and bring other incredible talent to the team. These individuals’ work ethic and commitment to results consistently amaze me. There’s nothing more motivating as a leader than working with other action-oriented, self-directed thinkers, do-ers, and learners.

How to InspireAs a leader, you inspire your team when your company’s mission is personal. You don’t just believe achieving your mission is important to becoming a sustainable business; you believe it is critical to improving humanity. This commitment is emotional, not logical, but the same emotional commitment is the reason people thrive when working with you. As Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, says about customers: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” The same principle applies to your team. And when you offer meaningful work, you don’t just set up your business for success in attracting passionate, committed and hard-working people, you set your people up for success in leading purpose-driven lives—a human need the business world often forgets to acknowledge and serve.

The perils of crowdfunding a beer

Thanks to crowdfunding, California’s Stone Brewing Co. raised $2.5 million in just six weeks this summer to sell some so-called “beer futures,” but the initial mixed reaction to the campaign caught co-founder Greg Koch off guard.

The campaign, which Koch has described as a “limited beer pre-sales event,” ran into some crowdfunding fatigue when the U.S.’s tenth largest craft brewer offered to sell advance orders for beers that will be brewed at the company’s new facility in Germany.

Though Stone Brewing’s campaign is the second-most successful effort on Indiegogo’s website, the company’s chief executive admits there were some challenges. Stone initially sold the campaign as an opportunity to buy special edition beers, while also sharing details about using the proceeds to speed up the timeline for Stone’s expansion plans in Germany and at a new location in Virginia.

“Some people were infuriated by that,” Koch told Fortune. “We found we hit quite a sensitive nerve. People were like, ‘You are coming to us for a handout, you are a profitable, successful company.'”

The campaign’s story is the latest example that shows craft brewers haven’t perfected the crowdfunding formula, even as many turn to strangers on the Internet to raise funds for a new project.

There are 23 breweries actively raising money on Kickstarter today. The website claims the geographic range and diversity of those efforts indicate the crowdfunding site is filling a much-needed gap by providing a form of investment via its backers when banks and traditional investors are unwilling to step up to the plate. Over the course of its history, more than 800 beer-related projects have been launched on Kickstarter, with the success rate of those projects (which includes other campaigns like say, a beer-focused documentary), slightly exceeding the success rate of the overall site.

While some of those campaigns have been successful, backers aren’t always seeing beers hit bar taps and retail shelves. Kansas City-based Wilderness Brewing Co., for example, raised $41,000 from 372 backers in 2011, with plans to use the proceeds to buy equipment and obtain proper licensing to brew its beer. Fast forward more than three years and backers are still waiting to taste their first Wilderness Brewing beer. In a blog post published in August, the founders said they still haven’t nailed down a location to build a brewery—an update that infuriated backers.

Texas-based Brewery Incubator also ran into trouble. It raised more than $36,000 last year, hoping to create a brewery that would feature a facility that could be used for aspiring brewers. Though the incubator opened in late 2013, it was shuttered this summer after the new business faced eviction from its landlord. The landlord claimed rent had been paid late, though Brewery Incubator says the issue was displeasure about a “naked game night” hosted at the site.

The founders of Wilderness Brewing and Brewery Incubator didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Mike Brenner, the founder of Wisconsin-based Brenner Brewing Company, turned to Kickstarter for marketing purposes and to presell merchandise. Brenner, a passionate home brewer, had earned an MBA and went to brewing school in Chicago and Munich to put himself in the best position to start his business. He also raised $2.2 million in equity investments and bank loans.

But Brenner, who raised nearly $26,000 more than two years ago, is still hearing from people who backed the project and want to cash in. Brenner said he tried to stay communicative with his backers, but he’s still getting requests for t-shirts, pint glasses, at-home brewing sessions, and other promises.

“I’ve been dealing with people for all eternity,” Brenner said. “As far as the whole process goes, was it worth the money I got? Probably not.”

Still, Brenner concedes there were some advantages.

“At [the time of the campaign], I had the highest number of individual contributors for a brewery project, so I could go to investors and say ‘Look, no one has ever had as many committed people as I have,’ which obviously impressed investors,” Brenner said.

On a positive note, crowdfunding websites can give aspiring brewers an opportunity to think about the challenge of raising capital and if successful, can inspire the entrepreneurs to make their dream a reality, according to Indiegogo Chief Executive Slava Rubin.

“Communication and transparency is very important,” Rubin said. He advises regular updates, and also says entrepreneurs should keep in touch with backers after the campaign has ended because the relationship companies like Stone Brewing can build with a crowdfunding audience can pay future dividends.

“What people forget is when you are an entrepreneur, your job isn’t done, you still have a business to run,” Rubin said. “The Indiegogo campaign helps push it forward.”

How tech companies compare in employee diversity

Silicon Valley companies like Google, Apple and Facebook may be innovative, but they sure aren’t when it comes to making their workplaces diverse.

Criticized for their hiring practices, tech companies started publishing employee demographic data over the past few months. It only confirmed what many people had suspected: White and Asian men dominate. Everyone else – women, blacks and Hispanics – are severely lacking.

In many cases, the companies issued a sort of apology in tandem with their diversity reports. “As CEO, I’m not satisfied with the numbers on this page,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in a blog post online. “Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity,” Laszlo Bock, Google’s senior vice president of people operations, said.

At least 14 tech companies have released data. In an effort to provide further clarity, Fortune has ranked them in individual categories and then again overall, using a point system. Here’s how they compare:

Ethnic diversity (leadership only)

Overall rankings

To calculate how the 14 tech companies fared overall, Fortune assigned points based on how they ranked in five categories: Overall gender diversity, overall ethnic diversity, gender diversity of the leadership team, ethnic diversity of the leadership team and gender diversity among technical workers. Companies that failed to report data in a particular category were given last place points for that category. Here’s how they stacked up, at least by Fortune’s measure:

At Indiegogo, workforce diversity that outpaces big tech firms

Indiegogo, the crowdfunding website where entrepreneurs can raise cash, says women make up 45% of its overall staff, a much larger figure than those revealed in recent months by large tech firms.

In a report today, the company, which has offices in San Francisco and New York, announced that 33% of its technology employees and 43% of its senior leaders are women. Of a total workforce of more than 100 employees, 8% is Hispanic while 87% is either white or Asian.

Indiegogo is just one of several tech companies, albeit a very small one, that have become transparent in recent months about their employee diversity data. Facebook (about 7,200 employees), Twitter (about 3,300), Apple (50,250), and Google (52,000) have each disclosed that women make up about 30% of their overall staffs. At about 33,500, eBay’s work force leads big tech firms when it comes to female representation: 42% are women. Indiegogo’s gender-balanced workforce is more akin to Pinterest, which said recently women make up 40& of its staff of more than 300.

“The Indiegogo team is exemplary,” said Vivek Wadhwa, a diversity expert who has advocated for more diversity in corporate leadership. “They are showing what is possible. The big tech firms are making excuses saying that they can’t find the right talent. Indiegogo proves that it is not that the women aren’t there, it is that companies have to think differently and recruit differently.”

The crowdfunding platform is also working to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs looking to raise funds. Less than 15% of venture-backed companies have a female founder, but Indiegogo says 47% of campaigns that reach their funding target are run by women. A study published last week, authored by researchers at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, offered further proof that woman may have the upper hand when it comes to crowdfunding. On Kickstarter, a similar platform to Indiegogo, roughly two-thirds of women-led tech firms reached their fundraising goals compared with 30 percent of tech companies with male founders.

“For a company like Indiegogo—whose goals are to support and amplify all entrepreneurial, creative and community-related endeavors—we don’t just need diversity to innovate and grow, we are absolutely dependent on it to achieve our long-term mission,” wrote Danae Ringelmann, an Indiegogo co-founder, in a blog post accompanying the figures.

Wadhwa also noted that Indiegogo, which has only a fraction of the employees at Google GOOG, Facebook FB, and the like, may be at an advantage when it comes to recruiting high-quality female talent. Calling Silicon Valley an “old boys club,” Wadhwa said women want to work with companies that are female-friendly.

“Given how diverse Indiegogo is, even if a woman was being offered more money at one of the other companies, she still might prefer to work for Indiegogo,” Wadhwa said.

To sign up for Caroline Fairchild’s daily newsletter on the world’s most powerful women, go to getbroadsheet.com.

Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech Conference(July 22-24 in Aspen, Colo.) regularly brings together the best and brightest minds in tech innovation. Each week, Fortune turns the spotlight on a different conference attendee to offer his or her own personal insight into business, tech, and entrepreneurship. This week, we asked Indiegogo co-founder Danae Ringelmann to answer 10 questions about life outside of work, the company she admires most, and industry advice for young entrepreneurs. Her responses follow.

What is the best advice you ever received?

The best advice I ever received came from my father who said, “The world has a way of saying ‘no.’ It has a ton of inertia and it doesn’t like change, but it’s your job as an entrepreneur to keep saying ‘yes.’”

This advice was amazing was because it really prepared me for entrepreneurship which is a rollercoaster of “no’s” and “yes’s,” so every time I hit a “no” or anything went wrong, I just remembered that it was the world saying “no.” It always stopped me from getting phased and helped me to refocus on what the next step was to get us back on track.

What would you say to a group of young people looking to enter the tough job market?

Do what my mother always told me, which is to follow and pay close attention to your nature in order to identify your strengths and what you’re good at. Then, focus on articulating what types of people you like to work with and what types of problems you like to solve. Do those first and then go out to see which jobs match. Trying to pick a job and then seeing if you actually like it is much less efficient. Your career is definitely not a straight line. It’s very fluid, but if you keep in touch with your nature, it should feel organic and it will make sense. You won’t be fighting yourself.

What would you do if you weren’t working at your current job?

I don’t know. If I had an answer to that, I wouldn’t be at my current job. I love Indiegogo. I love that we give everyone an equal opportunity and don’t judge. I love that we’re proving to the world that finance doesn’t need gatekeepers and can be fair once and for all.

What was your biggest missed opportunity?

If there was one, I’ve forgotten it. There’s no room in my mind to [waste] remembering it. All you have is the moment in front of you now. You need to open your eyes to see that opportunities are everywhere.

What do you do for fun?

I spend as much time as possible with my friends and family outside. My nephew is two-years-old and every day he reminds me of how special life is.

What business or technology person do you admire most? Why?

My father. No matter how difficult a situation was financially, emotionally or ethically, he never cut corners. Every decision and action was made with selfless integrity because that was the right thing to do, not because he was trying to adhere to any external or societal norms.

What other companies do you admire? Why?

I admire all businesses, companies, organizations, and people who do what they do because of an authentic and genuine desire to solve a problem and help the world. What’s the point otherwise?

What technology sector excites you most?

Neuroscience and the study of consciousness. We’re on the brink of understanding ourselves and I believe that greater empathy across the human race is fundamental to actually solving our problems.

What do you do to live a balanced life?

I approach life with the goal of work-life integration, not necessarily work-life balance. I also take 15 minutes every day to clear my mind, I work out, and I smile as often as possible.

What is one characteristic that every leader should possess?

Every leader should desire to continually improve their self-awareness. No one is perfect and we wouldn’t want anyone to be. Often, flaws are endearing, but self-awareness enables leaders to see when their strengths are needed and when their weaknesses are getting in the way. Self-awareness empowers well-intentioned leaders to do what’s needed in the moment, not what their egos might want in the moment.